How is recycling affecting interior design Essay

How is recycling affecting interior design - Essay Example inputs (lowering the consumption of raw materials and energy) and outputs (waste that goes to landfills) of a production system (Letsrecycle.Com 2006). A study by the Technical University of Demark studied 55 products in household rubbish, comparing the effects of burning, burying and recycling them. The results proved that recycling was the most efficient way to do with the waste more than 80% of the times, providing a worthwhile energy savings in comparison with production from raw materials: 95% economy for aluminium, 70% fro plastics and 40 % for paper (Economist 2007). Since 1970s recycling is associated with the notions of sustainable design (also green or ecological design) and sustainable community development. According to Green Supply Line (2007), â€Å"Sustainable design is a comprehensive, holistic approach to creating products and systems that are environmentally benign, socially equitable, and economically viable: environmentally, such that the design offers obvious or measurable environmental benefits; socially, so that it fills the needs of everyone involved in its production, use and disposal or reuse; and economically, so that the design is competitive in the marketplace.† Pellow, Schnaiberg and Weinberg (2000) suggest that recycling has become a model of sustainable community development while it has environmental, economic and social benefits, where economic one plays, perhaps, the crucial role (p.7-8). Today recycling is one of the major requirements of sustainable design and sustainable community development. For instance, Santa Monica Green Building Program names â€Å"recycling of demolition & construction waste in construction contracts† and specification of recycled products per EPA purchasing guidelines among its requirements to materials and envelope and space planning (Santa Monica.org). Recycling, together with efficient reduction and reuse of resources (materials and energy) is underlined as one of the major principles in most of the